Portal:Literature
Introduction
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose, fiction, drama, poetry, and including both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and essays. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
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The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication, but has since been considered his greatest work. The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by the publishing house Scribner's.
On the surface the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him impotent—and the promiscuous divorcée Lady Brett Ashley. Brett's affair with Robert Cohn causes Jake to be upset and break off his friendship with Cohn; her seduction of the 19-year-old matador Romero causes Jake to lose his good reputation among the Spaniards in Pamplona. The novel is a roman à clef; the characters are based on real people and the action is based on real events. In the novel, Hemingway presents his notion that the "Lost Generation", considered to have been decadent, dissolute and irretrievably damaged by World War I, was resilient and strong. Additionally, Hemingway investigates the themes of love, death, renewal in nature, and the nature of masculinity.
Selected excerpt
“ | Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? | ” |
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray |
More Did you know
- ... that in Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, Ken Auletta uses the story The Purloined Letter to describe the attitude of the traditional media executives toward Google?
- ... that Miriam Roth grew up in a Hungarian-speaking town, studied at a German-speaking university, and wrote best-sellers in Hebrew?
- ... that in the 1895 play Trilby, the role of Svengali was created by American actor Wilton Lackaye?
- ... that Louisa Venable Kyle wrote a children's book on The Witch of Pungo?
- ... that Walter Arthur Berendsohn, who successfully nominated Nelly Sachs and Willy Brandt for their respective Nobel Prizes, wrote Die humanistische Front, the seminal book on German exile literature?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Hammersmith by Gustav Holst was acclaimed by Frederick Fennell for having "some of the most treacherous stretches of music making" in band literature?
- ... that Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam wrote in English, despite feeling no connection to the English literary tradition?
- ... that Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski – considered "the founding father of Polish literature" – wrote threnodies, the first Polish-language tragedy, and epigrams?
- ... that Edo literature was influenced by British colonialism in the late 19th century, which introduced the Roman script and Christianity to the Edo people?
- ... that Charles Larson became one of the first Americans to teach African literature, after working in Nigeria for the Peace Corps to avoid the Vietnam draft?
- ... that in the Forum of Augustus in Rome, elogia were hung on statues of commanders and Augustus's ancestors?
Today in literature
- 1856 - L. Frank Baum, American author born
- 1890 - Katherine Anne Porter, American author born
- 1891 - Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian writer born
- 1911 - Max Frisch, Swiss author born
- 1954 - William March, American writer died
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